Organisation

Step ladder to ITER: With ASDEX Upgrade and JET, the European Fusion Programme is concerned with two differently sized ... [more]

Step ladder to ITER: With ASDEX Upgrade and JET, the European Fusion Programme is concerned with two differently sized fusion devices that are very similar to ITER, thus allowing size scalings to be made. [less]

Step ladder to ITER: With ASDEX Upgrade and JET, the European Fusion Programme is concerned with two differently sized fusion devices that are very similar to ITER, thus allowing size scalings to be made.

Graphic: IPP

Graphic: IPP

In the experimental campaign 2017 ASDEX Upgrade about 1200 plasma discharges were planned. The rest of the time was used for evaluating the measurements and for technical modification. The experiments started after a shut down for repairs and enhancements in March 2017.

About two thirds of the experimentation time was used by IPP for its own research activities. Five project groups are concerned with:

Improvement of H mode and integrated scenarios

Pedestal and divertor physics

Turbulence

MHD instabilities and their active control

Transport

About one third of the plasma discharges have been directly available to the European Fusion Programme, a consortium of national fusion laboratories, and further visiting scientists. More than 200 visiting researchers temporarily are conducting experiments on the device. The joint research planning of the consortium expects essential contributions on the way to a fusion power plant from the work on ASDEX Upgrade: The device is a flexible, medium-size appendage to the JET large-scale device and can, unlike all the other tokamaks in Europe, offer a completely metal-clad vessel wall.

In the framework of the joint research planning, ASDEX Upgrade is at the centre of the Medium-Size Tokamak (MST) work package. A large number of experimentation proposals from IPP and the whole of Europe is to be integrated in the work programme of ASDEX Upgrade. The research with ASDEX Upgrade involves the following divisions of IPP: